Summertime Haying
by frauleina
Summary: Riley spends some time coming to terms with his past, present and future after leaving the service. Purely a Riley POV fic. Written back between seasons 4 and 5.


Spoilers: 4th Season

Disclaimer: Joss owns him – wish I did!

Notes: I guess I got home sick for the countryside and this fic just sort of popped out of me.

**Summertime Haying**

Looking out across the back 40, Riley felt himself relax. This was exactly what he needed. Some time to think, work and simply be one with his surroundings. He wouldn't admit it to his father but he missed farm life sometimes. The sun was just beginning to set and a cool breeze had picked up as he went through the repetitious action of cutting alfalfa. The tangy scent of the fresh cut hay enveloped him, while a few bugs and a butterfly flitted in front of the old Ford tractor. Shifting down to steer threw the corner Riley headed the old cantankerous machine back across the field. He glanced back at the rake to make sure the hay was laying out flat so it would dry properly in the sun.

Riley couldn't help but grimace when he caught sight of his arms. He had to wear a t-shirt haying, what with the bits and pieces of leaves and stems flying about in the air. He was covered with a grimy film of sweat, dirt and pieces of alfalfa. Yes, he had a fine farmer's tan. Where his sleeves rose up a little, when he was stretching to turn the big old tractor's wheel and look back to check on the rack, he could see how pale he was. His skin had gone from a light California tan to a deep Indian brown in just a few days in the fields.

His hands too were changing. Riley had always had strong hands - from years of working on the farm. But, time away from the constant hard labor had allowed his hands to soften. Gone were the thick pads of calluses across his fingers and palms. Again he grimaced, though this time it was from rubbing his palm across the wheel as he turned it. The old tractor took more then just a light turn that a car would need. You had to put your back into it and gripe the wheel to steer it threw the corners. After a week of labor, Riley's hands were a mess of blisters, cuts and rubbings. Raw in some places, his hands actually hurt when he gripped the wheel.

Oddly enough Riley didn't actually mind the pain much. The work got him out in the fresh air, in the sunshine, away from his family and their ongoing questions. He knew coming home for a visit was going to be difficult. How was he going to explain his sudden departure from the service? His family welcomed him back with loving, open arms, of course. His mother, grandmother, and sisters had made much of him. His father and granddad too, were glad to have him home and not just because they could use the extra help around the farm. But, all of them wondered about him. Riley knew this from the glances, and the occasional silences at the dinner table. They all knew there was more to his story then what he had told   
them. Riley had come home and simply said he realized that a life in the service wasn't for him and that he had left. Upon questioning he didn't elaborate and readily admitted he didn't know what he was going to do. He told them he had come home to visit and to think about his future.

Bouncing along on the old Ford tractor's seat, Riley couldn't help but remember the time as a boy he had taken car oil to the springs of the old metal seat. At the time he thought he was doing his father a favor by oiling the metal springs to loosen them up. To this day, the tractor's seat bounced more than any tractor Riley had seen. The oil, wrong type though it was, had done the job.

Reaching up to shift the tractor down while he turned it back to cross the field again, Riley couldn't help but recognize now truly content he was at the moment. Manual labor cleared his mind, and wore him out so he slept hard at night and woke in the morning, though physically tired, mentally clearer then he had been in months. This was the type of peace Riley had come home to find. While he missed Buffy to the point where it felt as if he had lost a limb, he knew too that until he found some peace within, he wouldn't be happy or content anywhere.

Digging his hanky out of his back pocket, Riley pulled his "Farm & Fleet" ball cap off and wiped the sweat and grime from his face and neck. Taking a deep breath of the fresh air, he looked out across the field to the setting sun. He was on one of the highest hills in the areas and below him in each direction rows of corn and alfalfa rolled out before him as far as the eye could see. Broken occasionally by a white farmhouse and red barn, or some tress lined up along the fence lines, it was a beautiful sight. Everything was green and fresh. With all the rain they had had this spring the Finns were looking forward to a bumper crop of hay and corn.

Which was good considering how low the milk prices had fallen again. Luckily, Riley's father had diversified and now the family no longer were simply dairy farmers, but also had a fair amount of pigs and beef cattle. The family usually also was able to sell their excess hay for a tidy profit later in the year.

Farming was something Riley never wanted to do. He actually enjoyed helping out on the farm during his breaks. It wasn't the backbreaking work or the long hours that had discouraged him. Riley enjoyed the work, the fresh air, and being close to nature. He liked getting dirty and always thought some dirt under a man's nails was actually a natural thing. It was the uncertainty of farming that convinced him that he should take another path.

Beginning to recross the field, Riley thought back to the tornadoes he'd seen and the damage they'd inflicted. Worse though, had been the rash of foreclosures during his high school years. Farming costs went up, government subsidies went down, and farmers who had already gone into debt who then had a few bad crops saw the banks take their land, cattle, equipment, and homes. Riley lost friends when their families moved to Dubuque, Des Moines, or Sioux City to find work. Farms worked by the same families for generations were suddenly gone. Gone to weeds, or to commercial farmers.

Frowning, Riley shook himself out of his sad thoughts and looked down the hollow to the Finn family farm. It looked so peaceful. White clapboard house, with a white fence surrounding it and the garden to keep the cattle out when they slipped through the wire fences. The fir pines that he remembered his dad planting when he was just a small boy towered now and   
the big oak in front of the house seemed to spread out and embrace the house and front yard. Riley knew he had been lucky. He had had an idyllic childhood surrounded by farm animals and wildlife. The creatures he had come across this past year had no place in this world.

Riley's reminiscing was damping his spirits. The longer he had been away from the family farm the more he realized it was unlikely he would ever come back permanently. Sure, he could come back for visits, maybe even play the farmer and help his dad out with haying and chores, but in his heart he knew he would never really belong here again.

He realized he had seen too much, done too much. The world outside of this quiet hamlet was in constant chaos. He knew better than most, particularly after helping stop some of that chaos personally.

He wondered - 'how many times has the world almost ended while I was fishing in the creek or training my steer for the fair?' Thinking of Buffy and his one-time exposure to an end of the world type situation, he knew he could never come back here to stay.

Bittersweet sorrow filled him. Never again would he live a life oblivious to the world around him. Knowing as much as he did, it was too late. It was true what they said. You can go home and they will take you in. The thing was, usually once you've left you couldn't really go back to the way things were. He was now a square peg and would never fit in the round hole that was this life. Riley recognized too, he was mourning what he could have been, and for his youth. As he turned the tractor again, and once again glanced back to make sure the rake was flipping the hay properly, he checked the setting sun and estimated he had another 20 minutes before dusk was upon him.

Riley had thought of himself as an adult, a man, for quite sometime, but now he knew he could really never go back to recapture his youthful naiveté. He was just vacationing in this old fairy-tale-like world, one usually only seen in movies and on TV. The sweet sorrow he felt weighing in his chest he embraced, knowing he would enjoy the days ahead of him. A few more days to remember and reminisce the way things used to be, the way he used to be.

Yes, Riley enjoyed haying. The manual labor, the hot sun, the cool breeze, it all brought him back to his roots. It also gave him plenty of time to think and to sort things out. Feeling satisfied that he had labeled his melancholy moment, Riley moved on, his thoughts going to the future.

He wasn't sure where his future led now that he was out of the service, but one thing he did know for sure, was that Buffy was an important part of it. Smiling to himself, Riley brought the old rickety tractor to the end of the field and shut it off. The sudden quiet was deafening. Riley sat back in the old Ford tractor seat, enjoying the sway in its springs. Looking out across the back 40 and taking in the solitude of the sunset he knew three things about his life.

He loved this place, he missed this place and he would never really belong here again.

Smiling to himself, Riley watched the sun dip below the horizon and the light around him dimmed. He could hear the grasshoppers humming, and the frogs down at the pond beginning to croak. The quiet evening settled around him and after another few minutes basking in the waning yellow light Riley started up the tractor and headed for home along the old gravel   
back road.

In a few days he would be heading back to Sunnydale, Buffy and the rest of his life.


End file.
